The HDD is out of warranty so it's no big deal, but If I can recover data off it then it'd be nice.

Any suggestions as to what the problem is? Windows only recognises it in device manager. The drive spins up. the heads dont seem to be broken nor can i find any mechanical failure. I'm thinking it might be the controller on the HDD but I dont know.

If Windows recognizes it in the device manager, you might be able to read off it by assigning a drive letter to it. Go into Start>Run>diskmgmt.msc>Right click on drive>click Assign Drive Letter>Choose Drive Letter>Click OK.

hmm, trying one of those PE disks may help, I gotta transfer a Windows installation over to another disk as I suspect the hard drive is failing on me. the PE disks don't access the HD but they contain disk software that may be helpful.